Category: My Life in Records

Stories about a lifelong obsession with music.

"One of the things instantly recognizable about My Life In Records is that it captures, in visual language, the magical crackle and pop of a vinyl record being played. There are also some early snippets of song lyrics, those types of generational songs that define us. So, for all those people who say that music doesn’t work well in comics, this one proves them wrong. Thomas displays the lively colorful reds of guitar strings humming, and builds a tale about childhood memories, music, art, and pop culture like Sesame Street being the ephemeral soundtrack to a person’s life." Poopsheet Foundation

"It’s always a little tricky to pull off music in comics, but I think Grant nailed it here." Optical Sloth

My Life in Records began as a webcomic in late 2005. My original plan was to draw an autobiographical comic about each album that had been important in my life. I made a “short list” of 50 albums and set to work making a weekly black and white comic strip.

After a year or so, I decided to print up one fo the stories to give away as Christmas presents to family members. AS I browsed options for sizes of books, I stumbled upon the square format book.

Perfect.

Now I had a comic about music that looked like a little record sleeve.

After completing the third chapter, I redrew the whole series in a square format and added color.

Along the way, I decided to change the scope of the project from “autobiographical” to “thinly veiled autobiography”. I changed the names of the characters and excised the second chapter, which now seemed convoluted and out of place.

I hope you will continue to enjoy the adventures of Tom and his brothers as they discover more music.